Worst Ride Ever?

Indeed. That's a picture of Mark's leg after our ride. Read on for all the gory details. Saturday Mark, Ann and I hit the Jemez again to ride Tom Mayer's "Porter to Virgin Mesa" loop. The entire loop is about 26 miles, but if you've ridden Tom's routes before, you know you earn your miles as most of his trails are wilderness style, ungroomed, loose, and strewn with deadfall and other obstacles. We parked adjacent to the Rio Guadalupe near Porter Landing and were almost immediately attacked by more mosquitos than I've seen since backpacking in Alaska. Of course we had no bug repellent, but we thought they would taper off by the time we started making the 3 mile climb from the river to the top of the mesas. I brought the singlespeed so I could get an extra workout. I had recently outfitted Ann's S-works with a new 34 tooth cassette to give her some extra climbing gears, since long steep climbs have always been her nemesis. With the exception of a few dabs, and having to carry the bikes over deadfall or some washouts, I made the climb on the SS without problem. The mosquitos however were relentless and we were hammering hard, just to try to get out of swarms. Once on top of the mesas, the mosquitos thinned out some but they were still biting every time we stopped. Finally a nice breeze picked up and knocked the mosquitos down and we were able to find a nice shady spot to eat some lunch. We finished out our route on the mesas and got to the point where we were heading back toward the car. We were enjoying the nice downhill through a steep sided canyon, when Mark noticed that our gps track showed we were off the main route which was to our left, high up above us. We decided (wrong decision) that the parallel route should be fine as we would intersect the main trail again in about a mile. Well, that's where things started deteriorating rapidly. The trail petered out and we were soon having to carry our bikes over more deadfall than I've ever seen, mosquitos so thick, they were driving us bonkers, and raspberry bushes that shredded every exposed inch of flesh on our legs. Oh, and did I mention the poison ivy? It was so thick in places there was no way to avoid contacting it. Knowing the real danger poison ivy can present, I was getting worried and envisioning everyone being hospitalized, covered head to toe in a deadly rash compounded by West Nile virus. Funny how the mind works when you're stressed, tired, and dehydrated. I just kept praying that the Lord keep us safe and get us through this mess.

I didn't want to let Ann out of my sight because this was perfect territory for mountain lions and she was struggling carrying her 25 pound bike over waist high deadfall. Not an easy task considering her bike is nearly a fourth of her total body weight. It took over an hour to get through the canyon and rejoin the main trail and everyone was spent. I'm super proud of Ann for forging through this worst of days, and she must have gotten several hundred mosquito bites on each of her arms, just like Mark did. I somehow managed to only get marginal mosquito bites, but all of us looked like we'd been in a cat fight with all the scratches on our legs and arms. Knowing time was of the essence given our exposure to the poison ivy, as soon as we got back to the the Rio Guadalupe, we washed our exposed skin thoroughly, got out of our biking clothes into clean ones and made a beeline to the Pueblo gas station for cold drinks to rehydrate. It was good to get home and get further scrubbed down to try and get any residual poison ivy oil off our skin. What a day. I'm not sure how many miles we ended up doing, but I know I won't be taking that route again any time soon!

Sunday we rested, cleaned up around the house, and I took care of some much needed maintenance on our bikes, including scrubbing them down thoroughly. Put some brats on the grill and chased them down with a couple of cold Fat Tires and slept like a baby.

So far, it seems like we avoided getting poison ivy, and I'm sure we'll be healed up soon and looking forward to the next big ride.